"Don't touch your face"---Effectiveness of a health communication intervention on reducing face-touching behaviors.

Background: Given the risk of infection through face-touching behaviors, investigators have called for more research into the development of interventions to reduce the frequency of face-touching. The current study aims to test the effectiveness of messages on reducing face-touching behaviors.

Methods: Nine different messages that highlighted the risk of face-touching were developed.

Evidence-Based Health Communication in Practice: Driving Funding, Research, and Training Through the University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication.

Academic centers play a vital role in advancing knowledge, driving innovation, and fostering collaboration. The University of Texas at Austin Center for Health Communication was established in 2014 with the mission to improve public health through evidence-based communication research and practice. In this article, we reflect on the center history, explain our practice-oriented funding structure, and showcase examples of public health campaigns informed by theory and data, as well as professional-oriented educational programs.

Evaluating the persuasiveness of messages promoting mobile mammography among uninsured women.

Mobile mammography units (MMUs) can enhance access to breast cancer screening by providing convenient, cost-effective service, particularly for uninsured and underinsured women. However, prior studies indicate that acceptability concerns about quality and privacy, among other issues, may prevent women from utilizing MMUs. The current study employs a within-participant experimental design exposing participants to messages about different MMU characteristics to determine which characteristics are most effective in persuading them to use an MMU.

Talking About Prescription Opioid Misuse: The Effect of Family Communication Patterns and Messages Advocating Direct and Indirect Communication.

Families play an important role in addressing substance misuse and addiction. Extant literature suggests patterns of communication within families influence the ways in which they engage loved ones who may be misusing substances like prescription opioids. However, little is known regarding how strategic health messages about family communication influence individuals' intentions to engage in conversations about substance misuse.

Psychosocial correlates of face-touching mitigation behaviors in public and private.

This study investigates psychosocial factors that influence people's face-touching mitigation behaviors. A nationwide survey was conducted online, and the results showed that perceived risk severity of touching face, and barriers and self-efficacy of not touching face were stable predictors. COVID-19 was related to a higher likelihood of mitigation behavior in public spaces.

Applying harm reduction to COVID-19 prevention: The influence of moderation messages and risk infographics.

Objective: We propose that harm reduction messages advocating moderation versus abstinence from social interaction will be seen as less threatening and increase intentions to follow COVID-19 guidelines. We also examine two important moderators: the influence of risk framing and willingness to risk infection.

Method: A 2 × 2 between-participants, randomized experiment (N = 476) varied infographics portraying low-risk behaviors, like going camping, versus high-risk behaviors, like attending a concert, followed by either moderation or abstinence guidelines.

Promoting support for community water fluoridation: Testing message effects and the role of normative beliefs.

Background: Despite evidence that community water fluoridation (CWF) protects oral health, improves health equity, is safe and cost-effective, and contributes to social well-being, little is known regarding which of these benefits should be highlighted to effectively influence support for CWF.

Methods: This within-participants study examines differences in CWF support in response to pro-CWF messages reflecting themes of oral health, health equity, CWF safety, cost-effectiveness, or social well-being among a sample of parents. Prior belief that CWF has health benefits, worry about potential health risks, and normative beliefs were also examined as independent predictors of support for each theme.

Social media conversations about community water fluoridation: formative research to guide health communication.

Objectives: Community water fluoridation (CWF) is one of the greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Despite this achievement, there are still misunderstandings about the safety of water fluoridation. Previous communication campaigns advocating CWF have been unsuccessful in combating these misunderstandings, suggesting a need for a new way to promote CWF.

Adolescent Attention to Disgust Visuals in Cigarette Graphic Warning Labels.

Purpose: Adolescents are often a target audience for disgust-eliciting antismoking messages, including graphic warning labels (GWLs) on cigarette packages. Yet, few studies have examined how adolescents attend and respond to disgust imagery frequently depicted in these messages.

Methods: A within-subjects eye-tracking experiment with middle school youth (N = 436) examined attention for GWLs that feature disgust versus nondisgust images.

Independent or synergistic? Effects of varying size and using pictorial images in tobacco health warning labels.

Introduction: Legal challenges have blocked the implementation of large, pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) in the U.S. In light of future legal questions the U.

Testing competing explanations for graphic warning label effects among adult smokers and non-smoking youth.

Rationale: The United States courts have blocked the implementation of graphic warning labels on cigarette packages (GWLs). This decision was based, in part, on the premise that GWLs are unnecessarily emotional and are meant to scare rather than inform consumers about smoking's health effects. However, research in judgment and decision-making suggests these relationships are more complex.

Effects of Varying Color, Imagery, and Text of Cigarette Package Warning Labels among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Middle School Youth and Adult Smokers.

The U.S. Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (Tobacco Control Act) of 2009 paved the way for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to propose nine different graphic warning labels (GWLs) intended for prominent placement on the front and back of cigarette packs and on cigarette advertisements.

Effects of 30% and 50% Cigarette Pack Graphic Warning Labels on Visual Attention, Negative Affect, Quit Intentions, and Smoking Susceptibility among Disadvantaged Populations in the United States.

Introduction: Though the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) calls for the implementation of large graphic warning labels (GWLs) on cigarette boxes, the courts have blocked the implementation of 50% labels in the United States. We conducted an experiment to explore whether changing the size of GWLs is associated with changes in visual attention, negative affect, risk beliefs, and behavioral intentions.

Method: We recruited adult smokers (N = 238) and middle-school youth (N = 237) throughout the state of New York in May 2016.